A Ship on the Horizon

Old port cities and their ships teach a lesson you can't live without, you just have to use your imagination.

There's something majestic to me about old port cities. I like to sit from perches high above them, like Fort Mason in San Francisco or El Castillo del Morro in San Juan, from which I watch the ships of yesteryear entering in.

No big buildings, vegetation covering more of the land, and large wooden ships. 

What strikes me the most about this mental imagery is that when you see those giant vessels in the distance, slowly entering the mouth of a bay, is that they often still look small and far away, for that they are. They may indeed even be hours away, depending on the distance from the mouth to the docks. 

As the unfurled sails on tall wooden masts slowly collapse, husbands return home, packages are delivered from afar, and long-desired goods for purchase finally reach their destination.

This was the quickest way to travel, transport, and communicate in ages past. 

Now we have a hard time not getting anxious when we have to wait for the bubble dots when someone is texting us. 

What a different life that must have been when communication didn't come at a moments notice, but with a carrier that took days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. 

There's something sweet to that life. It's less convenient and I would certainly know (and hence be able to keep in touch with) less people that I now know. But the idea of important things taking time just feels right. And right now, I'm longing to make everything I do more important. 

That probably doesn't mean moving to one of the few remote islands remaining on earth—those only accessible by sea—but I'll certainly always relish the opportunity to sit high above such bays, watching mythical ships enter their havens, to envision what life must have been like long ago and challenge myself to live by those strengths of those times.